Federal Regulators Aren't Ready To Crack Down On Bitcoin Because They Still Don't Really Know What It Is

Bitcoin is safe from federal regulators for now — mostly because they're still not quite sure what it is. Yesterday, law enforcement officials led by the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement network met with representatives from the Bitcoin Foundation, a California-based group that serves as the unofficial custodian of the digital currency, to discuss how Bitcoin works. The meeting was reported by the Washington Post's Brian Fung . Bitcoin Foundation counsel Patrick Murck attended the meeting, and told us it was basically an instructional session for the officials: "It was more high level — understanding Bitcoin as a value exchange protocol ... how it works. We weren't there to discuss specific policy, that'll come later, this was to establish an open dialogue." In its earliest days, Bitcoin, which is essentially a series of unique computer codes that can be ...